Naming Places on the ‘Southland’: European Place-Naming Practices from 1606 to 1803

Abstract

The history of charting Australia's coastline is well documented from most perspectives, but not from a toponymic standpoint. Between 1606 and 1803, some nine hundred European placenames were bestowed along the Australian coast. We report here on an investigation and analysis of the place-naming practices of the Dutch, French, and English along the Australian coastline between 1606 and 1803, and show how these names reflect the social and political attitudes and motivations of the name-givers.

Notes

¹See Jan Tent, ‘Geographic and Linguistic Reflections on Moent and Dubbelde Ree, Two of Australia's First Placenames’, Geographical Research: Journal of the Institute of Australian Geographers 44, no. 4 (2006): 389—402.

² Peder Gammeltoft, ‘In Search of the Motives Behind Naming: A Discussion of a Name-semantic Model of Categorisation’, in Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Ononmastic Sciences, Uppsala 19-24 August 2002, Vol. 1, ed. Eva Brylla and Matts Wahlberg (Uppsala: Språk-och folkminnesinstutet, 2005), 151–60.

³ When the Dutch started charting the west coast of the Australian continent in the early part of the seventeenth century, the land became known as New Holland. The unmapped eastern region continued to be identified as Terra Australis. These appellations remained until James Cook charted the east coast of the continent, which he named New South Wales. For a time, maps of the continent labelled the western half New Holland and the eastern half New South Wales. In 1804, Matthew Flinders suggested the name Australia on his chart of the circumnavigation of the continent. Governor Lachlan Macquarie used the term Australia in all his correspondence. In 1830, official recognition of the name Australia was granted. See for example: National Library of Australia, Australia in Maps: Great Maps in Australia's History from the National Library's Collection (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2007); David Taylor, The States of a Nation: The Politics and Surveys of the Australian State Borders (Bathurst: NSW Department of Lands, 2006), 20–21, 24–25.

⁴ Jean Fornasiero, Peter Monteath and John West-Sooby, Encountering Terra Australis. The Australian Voyages of Nicolas Baudin and Matthew Flinders (Kent Town: Wakefield Press, 2004).

⁵ See, for example, Geoffrey Badger, The Explorers of the Pacific (Sydney: Kangaroo Press, 1988); Charles de Brosses, Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes (Paris: Chez Durand, 1756); Miriam Estensen, Discovery: The Quest for the Great South Land (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1998); Fornasiero, Monteath and West-Sooby; J.E. Heeres, The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606–1765 (London/Leiden: E.J. Brill, Luzuc and Co., 1899); John Kenny, Before the First Fleet: Europeans in Australia 1606–1777 (Sydney: Kangaroo Press, 1995); R.H. Major, Early Voyages to Terra Australis (London: Hakluyt Society, 1859); Günter Schilder, Australia Unveiled: The Share of the Dutch Navigators in the Discovery of Australia (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1976); H. Swaardecroon, C. Chastelijn and J.S. Craine, ‘Report to Jan van Hoorn and Council of India, 6 October 1705’, in Early voyages to Terra Australia, now called Australia: A collection of documents, and extracts from early manuscript maps, illustrative of the history of discovery on the coasts of that vast island, from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the time of Captain Cook, ed. R.H. Major (London: Hakluyt Society, 1856 [1705]), 165–73.

⁶ Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, “Dutch-Asiatic Shipping 1595–1795”, <http://www.inghist.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/DAS> accessed 17 March 2005.

⁷ Cited in Johan Fredrick Gebhard, Het Leven van Mr. Nicolaas Cornelisz Witsen 1641–1717 (Utrecht: J.W. Leeflang, 1881), vol. I, 480; vol. II, 341.

⁸ Mike Dash, Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2002); Michael Pearson, The Great Southern Land: The Maritime Exploration of Terra Australis (Canberra: The Australian Government, Department of the Environment and Heritage, 2005); Phillip Playford, Carpet of Silver: The Wreck of the ‘Zuytdorp’ (Perth: University of Western Australia Press, 1996), 18–32; Willem C.H. Robert, The Dutch Explorations, 1605–1756, of the North and Northwest Coast of Australia. Extracts from Journals, Log-books and Other Documents Relating to these Voyages (Amsterdam: Philo Press, 1973), 3–49; Schilder, 43–221; Swaardecroon, Chastelijn and Craine, 165–73. The west coast of Australia boasts 45.6 per cent (or 3,747) of the continent's 8,222 islands. Geoscience Australia. Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources, Commonwealth of Australia, <http://www.ga.gov.au> accessed 7 April 2005, no pagination.

⁹ Three other ships are known to have disappeared between Cape of Good Hope and the East Indies: the Ridderschap van Holland (1694), Fortuyn (1724), and Aagtekerke (1726). It is generally assumed they also ran aground along this coastline. Pearson, 20–44; Playford, 18–32.

¹⁰ For detailed discussions of this phenomenon see, for example: J.B. Harley, ‘Maps, knowledge and power’ in The Iconography of Landscape, eds. D. Cosgrove and S. Daniels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 277–312; Robin A. Kearns and Lawrence D. Berg, ‘Proclaiming Place: Towards a geography of place name pronunciation’, Social and Cultural Geography, vol. 3, no. 3 (2002): 297; Peter G. Lewis, ‘The Politics of Iranian Place-names’, Geographical Review, vol. 72, no. 1 (1982): 99–102; John Murray, Politics and Place-Names: Changing Names in the Late Soviet Period (Birmingham: University of Birmingham, 2000); Gareth A. Myers, ‘Naming and placing the Other: Power and the urban landscape in Zanzibar’, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geographie, vol. 87, no. 3 (1996): 237–46; Val Plumwood, ‘Decolonising Relationships with Nature’, PAN: Philosophy Activism Nature, Issue 2 (2002): 7–30.

¹¹See, for instance, Laurence D. Berg and Robin A. Kearns, ‘Naming as Norming : “Race”, Gender, and the Identity Politics of Naming Places in Aoteraroa/New Zealand’, Environment and Planning: Society and Space, vol. 14 (1996): 99–122; Paul Carter, The Road to Botany Bay: An Essay in Spatial History (London: Faber & Faber, 1987); Ron Crocombe, ‘Naming and Claiming in the South Pacific’, Journal of the Pacific Society, vol. 50 (1991): 1–19; R. Douglas K. Herman , ‘The Aloha state: Place Names and the Anti-conquest of Hawai'i’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 89, no. 1 (1999): 76–102.

¹² Herman, 96.

¹⁴ Cited in John Cawte Beaglehole, The Life of Captain James Cook (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), 148.

¹³ Even though Cook had discovered the eastern coastline of Australia in 1770, he was subsequently sent out on a second voyage to search for the reputed great southern continent.

¹⁵ Cited in John Cawte Beaglehole, The Life of Captain James Cook (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), 149.

¹⁶ Cox charted Maria Island on his way to explore the north-west coast of America. Edwards was dispatched in the Pandora to capture the twenty-five Bounty mutineers, and McCluer was with the (English) East India Company. He surveyed the coast of New Guinea and returned to Benkulen via the Arnhem Land coast.

¹⁷ Vancouver was leader of an expedition to survey the north-west coast of America. He charted a section of the south coast of Western Australia on his way to America. Hayes was leader of a private expedition to gauge New Guinea's economic potential. He called at Adventure Bay on his way to New Guinea. He unwittingly renamed many features named by d'Entrecasteaux shortly before.

¹⁸ Charles de Brosses, Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes (Paris: Chez Durand, 1756), 103.

¹⁹ Armand d'Avezac, Campagne du navire l'Espoir de Honfleur, 1503–1505 (Paris: Challamel, 1869).

²⁰ Leslie R. Marchant, France Australe: A Study of French Explorations and Attempts to Found a Penal Colony and Strategic Base in South Western Australia 1503-1826 (Perth: Scott Four Colour Print, 1998), 80.

²¹ John Dunmore, French Explorers in the Pacific (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965).

²²Marchant.

²³Marchant.

²⁴Jean Fornasiero, Monteath and West-Sooby, Encountering Terra Australis.

²⁶Jean Fornasiero, Monteath and West-Sooby, Encountering Terra Australis, 19.

²⁵Jean Fornasiero, Monteath and West-Sooby, Encountering Terra Australis.

²⁷Jean Fornasiero, Monteath and West-Sooby, Encountering Terra Australis.

²⁸The numbers represent all names bestowed during our survey period, including ones that are no longer extant.

²⁹Carter, 137.

³⁰ Wilbur Zelinsky, ‘Slouching Toward a Theory of Names: A Tentative Taxonomic Fix’, Names: A Journal of Onomastics, vol. 51, no. 2 (2002): 248.

³¹ See n 2.

³²H.L. Mencken, The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States, abridged ed (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967 [1921]), 643.

³³ George R. Stewart, Names on the Globe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975).

³⁴ Grant Smith, ‘Amerindian Place Names: A Typology Based on Meaning and Form’, Onomastica Canadiana, 78 (1996): 53–64; Thomas J. Gasque, ‘A Number System for the Classification of U.S. Placenames’, unpublished paper presented at ICOS 22, Pisa, 2005.

³⁵Marchant, 316.

³⁶ For example: waterplaets ‘watering place’, zoutrivier ‘salt(y) river’. The Dutch were especially fond of using such generic terms on their charts.

³⁷For example, the origin and referent of Baudin's Les Espions (The Spies), and John Daniel's Maidens Isle were unknown at the time of writing.

⁴⁴For nine of these, it is not known whether they should be Level 7.1.1 or 7.1.2. This is why the figures under Level 3 Categories do not add up to the numbers indicated under Level 2. All percentages are calculated as a proportion of the total number of toponyms analysed for each individual nationality.

⁴⁵ For thirteen of these, it is not known whether they should be Level 7.1.1 or 7.1.2.

⁴⁶For 141 of these, it is not known whether they should be Level 7.1.1 or 7.1.2.

³⁸Chi-square analyses on toponym category Levels 2 and 3 were not conducted because too many cells in the cross-tabulations contained expected frequencies of less than five.

³⁹ See Tent, ‘Geographic and Linguistic Reflections’.

⁴⁰John Cawte Beaglehole, ed., The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery. Vol I, The Voyage of the ‘Endeavour’ 1768–1771 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 366, fn. 1.

⁴¹For instance, Cook's charts of Tahiti, Tonga, Hawai'i, and New Zealand abound in local Indigenous placenames. In all these places, Cook had extensive intercourse with the inhabitants.

⁴² H. Swaardecroon, C. Chastelijn and J. S. Craine, ‘Report to Jan van Hoorn and Council of India, 6 October 1705’, in Early voyages to Terra Australia, now called Australia: A collection of documents, and extracts from early manuscript maps, illustrative of the history of discovery on the coasts of that vast island, from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the time of Captain Cook, ed. R.H. Major (London: Hakluyt Society, 1856 [1705]), 165–73; George Collingridge, The Discovery of Australia. A Critical, Documentary and Historic Investigation Concerning the Priority of Discovery in Australasia by Europeans Before the Arrival of Lieut. James Cook, in the ‘Endeavour,’ in the Year 1770. Facsimile edition (Gladesville: Golden Press, 1983 [1895]), 299.

⁴³Comte A. De Fleurieu, La nomenclature française en Australie et en Tasmanie (Paris: Masson et Cie. Editeurs, 1914).